Secrets we keep
by Erroneous Bard
Summary: There weren't many things I could count on in my life. Not really, truly, but this one thing, I would place stake on. Granger and I, we weren't good for each other. If I spit fire, most people just burn and shrivel up, turn to ash. Granger would never be burned so easily. She takes it in, and turns those flames back on me. It was a thrilling experience that I had began to welcome.
1. Change

_This is a work in progress. It's evolving in my heart right now, from kind of an ugly duckling that I found hiding among all of my older, tossed out, "junk" fanfictions, and I've since revised it into something of a beautiful butterfly. : ] I'm pretty happy with how it's revising, and I hope you will be too. Overall I'm glad I didn't toss it out completely._

_It's Dramione, and it will be a mature fic, but for now, it'll be rated T. However if you don't dig M fics, then you should just leave now, because eventually it will have lemon and bad language._

_Please review. : ] It makes me feel appreciated. And if you feel the need, I'll accept criticism. You guys are great._

_Rating: T for now_

_Pairing: Draco/Hermione _

_Goal: New chapter should be up in a week actually. Editing it now, so I should have it up soon._

_Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, but I think everyone knows who does._

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_Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.- Buddah_

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_You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. _There was no way that this intriguing creature standing before me was the same as the horrific _thing_ that was there just the year before. There's no possible way that she could have changed so very much in such a short amount of time.

Surely, this was not the same Hermione Granger as was the prefect last year. Surely this wasn't the same bushy headed girl I knew for years and years. It was inconceivable.

If it was indeed the same girl, she must have traded something incredibly expensive in return for this new form of herself.

It wasn't that her bushy hair was gone, or her boring brown eyes were any different than just that, but her previously disproportionate body, chubby with baby fat was now quite lean. Not anymore were her teeth wide spread, they were strait and her smug grins were much more effective in humiliating and irritating me. Her skin was no where near as fair and freckled as it used to be, but now was tanner slightly, making the colored in circles across her face and collarbones lighter. She was a sight to behold, still an unconventional kind of attractive, but it could be argued that she was appealing in some way. This could not _possibly _be the same Hermione Granger. Not the same mudblood I'd known for so long. No sir.

I felt my skin prickle as she made her way to the Gryffindor table. I watched her the entire way, my eyes zooming in and focusing like a hawk on it's prey. The others seemed nonexistent. Only after I saw her eyes connect with mine did I jerk them to a different direction, anything but her. I focused slightly on whatever else it was, not Granger, that I was looking at. _Dumbledore_. Good, my eyes subconsciously did what they were supposed to.

He was speaking of something about the forbidden forest, like he did every year, for the new first years. Small kids this round. I don't remember myself ever being so damn small. Funny looking animals.

He continued on and I tuned him out only too eagerly. Well, until I heard a familiar name.

" …Hermione Granger, and Draco Malfoy," I watched Granger stand a little awkwardly, but cheerfully and lower her head. I jerked to follow, never quite losing my outer composure. She glanced at me before returning to her seat, and it was an odd glance. Void of emotion. Her eyes were blank with no sign of hatred true, but also, no sign of anything else. It fueled a strange and absurd curiosity within me. "Memorize their faces younger years, for they will be your new head boy and head girl. Go to them if there are any problems. If you two would like to meet me just a bit later, we'll attend to business." I nodded gruffly and Granger smiled at him solemnly. _Goody-goody_.

He returned his attention to the rest of the students and I quickly went back to ignoring him. My mind was drifting about the memories of previous years. Memories of Granger mostly. Of the Granger that she used to be, not whoever this woman was now. Surely the break had been very kind to her, whatever activities it was that she took upon during the summer.

My eyes honed in on her as I thought back, comparing her for the trillionth time since I'd seen her this year, to her former self. She had changed so dramatically that I couldn't understand it. It literally boggled me, stumped me, mystified me. It was like looking at an otherworldly mystery of some deliciously interesting nature.

Across the tables she whispered every so often to Weasel or Potter, but otherwise paid attention to Dumbledore's annoyingly consistent speech…For a while anyway. However as I watched her- This thought _should_ disgust me -, I observed things about her. She began to lose focus on Dumbledore. Her eyes shifted to the table just in front of her and hazed over. She stopped listening completely. So, maybe she wasn't such a goody-goody after all…

Careful not to draw attention to myself, I shifted in my seat swiftly, lacing my hands just in front of my face to peer over my knuckles at her. She was so complicated it was astounding.

Weasley appeared not to notice her lack of attention, and though for the most part Potter didn't seem too interested, he would glance at her every so often from his place beside her on the bench. His eyes grazed over her and then returned to Dumbledore reluctantly. Maybe all hope wasn't lost for Saint Potter. He seemed to possess enough awareness to recognize the difference in his companions alteration of mood.

I heard that buffoon of a headmaster speak some more of the rules before the final chirpy wish of another great year at Hogwarts. With a sigh, I followed pattern with everyone else as we stood up. Another great year, right?

I pretended that I wasn't watching Granger as I showed my kids their way to the door. Though, feeling strangely hospitable, I did nod to her before I pushed past her with my kids. It wasn't necessarily a friendly nod, but it was meant to be a defense of my superiority. She didn't nod in return, however she did stop her younger years behind her so that mine could persist to make way first without sparking a confrontation. I took it as a positive sign towards the year to come.

There was something about the way her eyes reflected a vacancy. She seemed shockingly indifferent towards me this year. Like she didn't really care about anything at all really, and it surprised me.

She didn't seem like the Granger I remembered even in the slightest. It seemed that I would have to work much harder to put her back in her place. Perhaps I had been feeling strange lately, and hadn't really devoted enough time to making her miserable. She had simply forgotten how much of a terror I could be, and just how lowly she really was. I would have to work harder than normal to put her back in her place.

Besides, it was rather disturbing to look at Granger and see that her far more acceptable anger, was gone. The rebel, fighter, resentment in her was the only thing I would ever consent to. Clearly, I have a lot of work to do this year. What a bother.

* * *

I admitted my children into the dungeon, and waved them along with a bland expression. I didn't feel like wasting the time on them tonight. To be honest, I wasn't sure why I got the job anyways.

Sure, I was intelligent, and respectable. If there were ever a slytherin capable and deserving of the job, our nit of a headmaster was right in assuming I was the one. However, I had already tired of doing the task, and it was the first day. This responsibility was annoying, and it was grinding on my temper.

"Alright. No questions I presume." I recognized that my tone was pegged only a notch lighter than being threatening, and none of the students before me spoke up. "Good. I'll be around," I turned to leave through the gap in the wall opened through the portrait, "If you have need of me." I added, and disappeared into the shadow, feeling surprisingly cool and mysterious as I heard a few feminine, first year gasps.

I did not dwell on the feeling long. It was a lengthy walk up to the headmasters office, and I spent it with a frightening amount of reflection on Granger, and a deep frown on my face. It isn't strange to think about Granger, I had done so for years. But this kind of thinking was something that almost alarmed me. Interest, intrigue, curiosity, there are a million words for what it was in my chest when I thought of her. Another that should be promptly noted; Disturbing. Just plain wrong. Incredibly questionable and strange. These thoughts were an invasion of my good common sense, and finely engrained upbringing.

There was little else I could do besides ignore it for the time being.

As it turns out, ignoring Granger was far easier said than done when said Gryffindor appears suddenly at the base of the spiral staircase that lead into the headmasters office. It was a likely place for her to be, considering we were both requested to be there, but it still startled me nonetheless.

I was certain that she didn't notice the tiny falter in my steps, and I gathered my composure and pasted on my best sneer. "Granger."

She took this typical interaction to be a greeting- and maybe it was in some way- and gave me a very small frown. "Hello Malfoy." She did not offer her hand or any sort of camaraderie, but she did offer silence, and a stiff angling of her shoulders away from my general direction.

Proceeding up the staircase, she did not pause for me to follow, and she did not look back at me. The echoing of our footsteps was the only sound of communal quality between the two of us as we rounded up to the office.

This was all expected in some way. Awkward silence, and restraint was something that I was happily able to tolerate.

Normally that was. However with the thoughts that had been invading my mind for the past several days, I simply could not stand to let it continue any longer. I found words springing to my lips, and my forehead creased into a frown as I fought to contain them.

In the end, I lost a battle that I had been fighting for a very long time; The battle to keep my opinions, no matter their nature, to myself. "You know something Granger," I began, and my voice hit the constricting walls of the staircase in a way that sent them reverberating back at me at a heinous volume and at astounding quantities. Those four words repeated about twenty times before they fell silent. I again considered if I wanted to continue, before ultimately deciding to do so. "I'm not surprised that I got stuck with you as head girl this year." Again the words bounced across us, between us, against us, like golf balls of tense distaste. Granger during this time, was offering me only the slight trembling of her shoulders, and the tight white-knuckled fists at her side as a buoy to keep this assault afloat and on target. Once the words died down again, I continued on, this time fearlessly plunging forward. "Seems like I've finally hit a spell of bad luck. To be trapped with you all year." I said snidely, and the words rippled unpleasantly, remaining stagnant in the air throughout the rest of the time it took to reach the door to Dumbledore's office.

Granger throughout all of this infraction, did not turn around and yell at me as expected. She offered me a stony, deep and infesting kind of silence.

I didn't like it at all. Granger and I, we were meant to be corrosive, poisonous, grating kind of people. It was just the way we were made to be. Opposites in the most satisfyingly predictable kind of way. I could always count on the two of our personalities combining into an acidic, explosive, negative and damaging sort of interaction. It was the kind of thing that I comforts me in some sick way.

There weren't many things I could count on in my life. Not really, truly. But this, this one fucking thing, I would place stake on. Granger and I, we weren't good for each other. If I spit fire, most people just burn and shrivel up, turn to ash. Granger would never be burned so easily. She takes it in, and it feeds her long enough for her to turn those flames back on me. It was a thrilling experience that I had began to welcome.

If she was suddenly becoming placid, matte, unresponsive, then what was this world coming to? I had nothing if I didn't have the expectation, the knowledge and faith that she would know just what to say to keep this toxin between us burning bright in the most ugly way.

This was disturbing more so than anything I could think pleasantly about her. At least those thoughts could be written off as sick sort of fantasies. This however, this hole that she was digging in my chest by something as simple as ignoring me, was distressing.

She didn't bother knocking on the door, she just pushed it open and practically ran into the room. Her eagerness was no doubt fueled by her need to be away from me.

I slowly followed, dreading the interaction with Dumbledore, as well as chewing on the thought that Granger had just willingly avoided an argument.

What was this world coming to?


	2. Outside

_Shorter than expected, and earlier, but the next will be longer, don't worry. Also means it'll probably be longer before it comes out. Either way, enjoy. : ] Please review!_

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_I'm on the outside, I'm looking in. I can see through you, see your true colors, cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me. I can see through you, see to the real you- [Outside] -Staind_

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Dumbledore has this certain look he always seems to give me when he knows I'm uncomfortable. It feels like he's trying to figure me out, crack some kind of code and make me feel guilty, like I actually did something wrong, even when I didn't.

He was gazing at me through those half-rimmed glasses, with those silvery blue eyes, and making me incredibly fidgety. It was even more annoying that whatever it was he was trying to achieve, he was doing so by slowly chipping away at my composure.

He seemed to be completely ignoring Granger, which was kind of strange, because she was speaking. Why he felt the need to stare at me the entire time she spoke, I didn't have a clue, but it was beginning to bug me.

I rounded my shoulders and crossed my arms, frowning at him. In response, his eyes seemed to sparkle even brighter. This annoyed me further for some reason.

"…so you see professor, I feel like it would be completely inappropriate for me to continue any further as head girl."

Those words, she just spoke them like the weren't the most astounding thing one person could ever hear, or say. I twisted my neck at her and let my hands drop to my side in a single motion that wasn't quite intentional. "What?" I barked, and for once her eyes snapped back towards me with defiance. There was a golden glow around her dark, narrowed pupils that pulsed and rippled in a way that was hypnotizing. I wondered if this was what Potter saw when he looked at her, and suddenly I was very jealous of the thought.

"You heard me," She snipped, and then I was looking at a fan of her hair as she turned back towards the headmaster. "Sir, I don't think it's best that I stay on as head girl. I'm not up to the job." She added meagerly, her hands clenching at her sides.

There was a peculiar burning present in my chest, and to mute the intensity of it each time I looked at Granger, I simply stared at the floor. It did little to help, but what else could I really do?

Dumbledore made an unusually disapproving sound. "Miss Granger, I think you and I both know that you're more than qualified for the job." I looked up in time to see him give her an oddly paternal, crinkly-eye'd smile. "I chose you Miss Granger, because you are the correct choice."

From the corner of my eye I saw her shaking her head and I suddenly became rather miffed.

So she wanted to run away, huh? Not while I was watching. She wouldn't escape me.

Granger had something coming to her, and I was going to be the one to put her in her place. "Sir," both of them turned their attention, "If Granger's getting a pass, I want one."

The highly irritated snort she gave me was music to my ears. "What are you talking about now, Malfoy?" She groaned like a rusty door hinge.

"I said, if you're getting out of doing this work, then so am I. I didn't want to be head boy either." I plastered on my very best smirk and it made her frown intensify, "You've saved me the trouble of bringing it up myself."

The look that colored her pretty face made my adrenaline skyrocket. It was such a pleasant rush that I had come to love so much. I didn't realize how much I really missed that frown, those scorching, angry eyes and those squared shoulders.

"I must say," Dumbledore's solemn tone turned her face away from me, and I was surprised by how disappointed I was to lose her attention, "I'm disappointed in you both. I chose the two of you as head students, and my decision is final." His eyes bore into me, and Granger seemed to be shaking from her place off to my side. "You will have to learn to work together eventually, but I will not remove either of you from your position."

Granger seemed to be too respectful of him to argue, but I bloody hell wasn't. However something stopped me from speaking against his decision, and I found myself grinding my words against my teeth and swallowing them down.

Maybe it was the way Granger's entire person seemed to be shaking, and maybe it was because my heart was beating so fast I was almost dizzy with excitement, and a hint of annoyance. Whatever the reason, Dumbledore's smile returned in the absence of our resistance.

"Very well then, you may return to your dorms. Keep in mind that you have more duties this year than your previous year as prefects, and that you should work together to complete them. I'm not saying it will be easy," He added, "but you two will have to be cooperative to complete them. I expect no less from my head boy and head girl than civility."

"Yes headmaster." It was a low, reluctant, and dejected, and it made my fingers clench into their own fist.

I did not respond in any way, I simply turned to let myself out. Granger was following suit, but even as we did the same thing, side by side, with the same expression marring our faces, we were not a unit. We were simply two people who were stuck in the same situation.

I had a strange feeling, that nothing would be easy from this moment on. This was originally my goal in life; to make things difficult for the girl who currently trailing soundlessly, slowly, anxiously behind me down the spiral staircase. However, it was something like what would be considered a bad idea to make her life difficult, considering we would be working so closely together for the entire year.

It might be a bad idea for me to complicate things further, but then again, I would hardly be Draco Malfoy if I didn't make things difficult for myself.

"Granger," I began the sentence in what had become the norm, with the same tone, the same expression, and it was met with the same annoyance, and the same Gryffindor like sigh, "Seems like we really are stuck together." I had really began to like the way the echo in this particular stairway made my voice so much more powerful and effectively crude. "Our last ditch attempts to drop each other failed." She wasn't really speaking to me, and seeing as how she was behind me, I couldn't see her, but I could _feel _her frustration. "So let's just get this straight," I did stop and turn around at this time, and it nearly caused a collision.

It was a cramped space that was made more constricting by the tension as I loomed over her. She looked smaller than I remember her. Much less defiant and strong, but there was still a indication of unwillingness there in the deep of her eyes that made me deliver my speech with the hopes that she would fight back. "You will not make my life miserable this year. This is supposed to be my golden year, and I will not spend it wasting my time with you." I ground out and her previously locked tight jaw snapped open in an instant.

There was something like enjoyment in me when she gazed up into my eyes without indecision, or fright, only bitterness. "You think I wanted to be stuck with you, Malfoy?" She shook her head and her wild hair bounced in her eyes briefly. She annoyingly pushed it back into place with her petite, smooth hand.

It was frustrating that I was so excited to see her cross her arms over her chest, and stand her ground. "Guess what Malfoy, this is going to be hell for the both of us. So just get out of my face and don't make this any harder than it already is."

I gave her a sneer, "You think you're in hell now," My words rebounded off the walls and into her face, but she seemed to be unaffected by the threat underneath them, "get in my way Granger, and I'll really show you what it's like to be in hell." The prospect of actually trying to deliver that promise was exceedingly enchanting. It was suddenly laborious to breath, and my hands were trembling with elation.

She was _too _much. _Too _daring, defiant, beautiful, unforgiving, intelligent and fearless. It was _too _much to turn down.

It seemed that at this time, she was not going to grace me with a response, no matter how clever of one I'm sure she could produce. Rather she gave me something much more astounding, extreme, entertaining. Her hands came up in what felt like a cut scene, all went quiet, and my blood pounded in my ears as she laid those tiny hands on me, and in one instance, she pushed me aside and took flight down the stairs. It startled me the strength she used, and I stumbled, my back landing a little painfully against the wall. She was around the corner and out of sight before I even had time to recover.

Standing there, my chest heaving, adrenaline-charged and undeniably, confusingly pleased with myself, it was proving it be more than delightful to be paired with Hermione Granger this year. It was going to be a long, but incredibly fun year indeed.


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